...the movie, not mine.
This film fits squarely in the Smut catagory and I would never ever admit to seeing it if it wasn't so hilariously, if grotesquely, funny. Per my directions for partaking in Smut, I followed my own advice and went alone. I had no intention of telling even Bliss that I was going to see it Wednesday night but gave myself away when he called afterwards, and I couldn't stop laughing. No, really, baby, Revolutionary Road is freaking hilarious. He didn't buy it. The fact that The Hangover, which is a cautionary tale about a bachelor party in Vegas gone very very wrong (or right, depending on one's degree of--made up word alert--dementedness), hit the spot might have had something to do with the fact that I see these man-children roving in blue-button-up-clad groups every single night I am out. They seem as indigenous to Sin City as dirt. What irks me most is that these man-children are utterly oblivious to their total lack of originality*. They think their predatory strut, their encounters with strippers named Cheyenne, and their tequila shot tally are all things they have come up with on their own. Not so! In the two years I have lived here I have personally driven to the ER four times after an old high school friend was found naked in one of the casinos' fountains and put on an IV drip due to (gasp) alcohol-induced dehydration. Four times I have brought these boys back to the house and allowed them to sleep it off on my couch. I've let them down easy when they awake 18 hours after their return flight has left. I've nursed them back to health with pancakes and Gatorade. I've called their fiances. I've called their mothers. As they struggle to recall WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, I've nodded my head, shook my head and gasped in disbelief, letting them believe: You are the craziest, wildest, most "off the hook" (gagging here) guy who has ever come to party in Vegas! Damn. They should write you up in Frommers.
*In the name of fairness, I must say that in NO WAY are the boa/crown/is-it-a-shirt or-a-skirt wearing bachelorette party girls less pandemic or tiresome.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
the list
My recommendations--
Fluff: "Cheaper Than Therapy" in the July issue of Marie Clairemagazine. An earnest, if surfacy, look at how five modern career woman have turned away and then toward religion. While more of a glance, rather than a hard look, at how Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Protestantism provided the answers these woman were looking for, a commendable attempt by a consumer magazine to delve below the shallow waters of eyeshadow shades and hemline lengths.
Smut: Intouch magazine's zillionith article about Lindsay Lohan's fluctuating weight and sexuality. One redeeming factor: brings up interesting game to play by yourself in your head while waiting in line at the DMV or having blood drawn. Li.LO and J.LO are not the only ones who get a cool two-syllable moniker. It works for everyone! Mo.MO, J.WO, Phi.NA, Li.RI. Go ahead, try it with your own name and then with the name of every person you've ever known. You know you want to.
Culturally Relevant: Spent by Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist who explains the burgeoning connections between evolution, sex and human consumerism. Marketers and snobs take heed: reading this book is the equivalent of someone throwing cold water in your face.
"Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You" in the June 8th issue of Newsweek. Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert call Oprah out on the flimsy, often downright inaccurate medical advice spewed forth by the guests on her show. It's. About. Time. Most intelligent article I've read in Newsweek in a looooong time. Check out, too, the publications new layout, which makes it look like The Economist or The Atlantic, though it still reads like its usual left-wing, watchdog fodder.
New finds:
Best Life : A magazine about "what matters to men." Useful for women who were afraid that their husbands and boyfriends were secretly like the men who write and edit Maxim.
Engagement 101 Magazine: The Magazine to Read BEFORE You Get Engaged (emphasis mine). I'm split as to whether I should throw up or applaud this brilliant, if shameless, marketing move by the publishers.
e.
New find:
Fluff: "Cheaper Than Therapy" in the July issue of Marie Clairemagazine. An earnest, if surfacy, look at how five modern career woman have turned away and then toward religion. While more of a glance, rather than a hard look, at how Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Protestantism provided the answers these woman were looking for, a commendable attempt by a consumer magazine to delve below the shallow waters of eyeshadow shades and hemline lengths.
Smut: Intouch magazine's zillionith article about Lindsay Lohan's fluctuating weight and sexuality. One redeeming factor: brings up interesting game to play by yourself in your head while waiting in line at the DMV or having blood drawn. Li.LO and J.LO are not the only ones who get a cool two-syllable moniker. It works for everyone! Mo.MO, J.WO, Phi.NA, Li.RI. Go ahead, try it with your own name and then with the name of every person you've ever known. You know you want to.
Culturally Relevant: Spent by Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist who explains the burgeoning connections between evolution, sex and human consumerism. Marketers and snobs take heed: reading this book is the equivalent of someone throwing cold water in your face.
"Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You" in the June 8th issue of Newsweek. Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert call Oprah out on the flimsy, often downright inaccurate medical advice spewed forth by the guests on her show. It's. About. Time. Most intelligent article I've read in Newsweek in a looooong time. Check out, too, the publications new layout, which makes it look like The Economist or The Atlantic, though it still reads like its usual left-wing, watchdog fodder.
New finds:
Best Life : A magazine about "what matters to men." Useful for women who were afraid that their husbands and boyfriends were secretly like the men who write and edit Maxim.
Engagement 101 Magazine: The Magazine to Read BEFORE You Get Engaged (emphasis mine). I'm split as to whether I should throw up or applaud this brilliant, if shameless, marketing move by the publishers.
e.
New find:
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
smut, fluff and culturally relevant specimens
Contrary to popular assumption, English teachers do not read Shakespeare over the summer. In fact, it is not a stretch to say that we make up a signficant portion of the readership of publications like InStyle, People, and Oprah Magazine between the months of May and September (Vogue is post-summer reading, due to it's serious treatment of the current season's on-trend eyelash length and the generous sprinkling of foreign surnames and words like "haute couture").
I admit to devouring the written word year round, but in the summer the spam filters are turned off and, therefore, I find myself more often than not reading one of the two of the following:
FLUFF.
Fluff may be defined as any irrelevant and mostly benign specimen of modern culture. It garners you cheery inclusion among the staff at the nail salon, your remedial summer English class, and 95% of tourists from LA. Fluff, I have found, is the perfect antidote to maybe Macbeth, and certainly remedial summer English class essays, and fat days. Examples include Angels and Demons, Twilight,Glamour magazine, and any book that if made into a movie would star Cameron Diaz. Instructions for use are simple: don dark sunglasses, stear clear of any casino pools where bored, spoiled (i.e. unemployed) Canyon Day School students hang out in between golf lessons with Tiger Woods and microdermabrasion appointments at Red Rock, and read away with dignity in tact.
SMUT.
Smut may be defined as any irrelevant and slightly insulting specimen of modern culture that must not, under any circumstance, be seen in your hands. Smut is the antidote to nothing. It is the only suitable reward after a day of teaching a remedial English summer class while your more fortunate contemporaries are writing a travel story from Bali. Examples include Newsweek , romance novels, and Cosmopolitan magazine* or any book that if made into a film would star Lindsay Lohan.** Instructions for use are just as simple as those for fluff, though failure to comply perfectly is hazardous: don dark sunglasses, feign that said publications are for your 12-year-old cousin who is suffering from mono at the check out line at Vons,and peruse only in the privacy of your bubble bath, preferably with a dry martini or shot of Goose to loosen yourself up and calm any self-depricating scoffing. Delve in only after too drunk to care about dignity or any other multi-syllabic word.
CULTURALLY RELEVANT PIECES of WRITING.
Culturally relevant pieces of writing are, ironically, not that relevant. In fact, mentioning such an article or book during a dinner party discussion while seated at the (presumably) grown-up table will most likely bring about blank stares or a strategical verbal volley--usually a reference to LeBron's shooting average in last night's NBA game. Reference to Bill Buckley or Toni Morrison offers a paltry return in both conversation and peer-group esteem at best and the presumption that you are just showing off at worst. Examples include 95% ofThe Atlantic, any play by Oscar Wilde and any book that if turned into a film would star Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio or Meryl Streep. Directions for use are even more simple than for Fluff and Smut: Unless you are discussing it with the man you are sleeping with (who, of course, given your general good taste would not meet you with a blank stare when you cross reference Salome with the bible), keep it to yourself.
I admit to devouring the written word year round, but in the summer the spam filters are turned off and, therefore, I find myself more often than not reading one of the two of the following:
FLUFF.
Fluff may be defined as any irrelevant and mostly benign specimen of modern culture. It garners you cheery inclusion among the staff at the nail salon, your remedial summer English class, and 95% of tourists from LA. Fluff, I have found, is the perfect antidote to maybe Macbeth, and certainly remedial summer English class essays, and fat days. Examples include Angels and Demons, Twilight,Glamour magazine, and any book that if made into a movie would star Cameron Diaz. Instructions for use are simple: don dark sunglasses, stear clear of any casino pools where bored, spoiled (i.e. unemployed) Canyon Day School students hang out in between golf lessons with Tiger Woods and microdermabrasion appointments at Red Rock, and read away with dignity in tact.
SMUT.
Smut may be defined as any irrelevant and slightly insulting specimen of modern culture that must not, under any circumstance, be seen in your hands. Smut is the antidote to nothing. It is the only suitable reward after a day of teaching a remedial English summer class while your more fortunate contemporaries are writing a travel story from Bali. Examples include Newsweek , romance novels, and Cosmopolitan magazine* or any book that if made into a film would star Lindsay Lohan.** Instructions for use are just as simple as those for fluff, though failure to comply perfectly is hazardous: don dark sunglasses, feign that said publications are for your 12-year-old cousin who is suffering from mono at the check out line at Vons,and peruse only in the privacy of your bubble bath, preferably with a dry martini or shot of Goose to loosen yourself up and calm any self-depricating scoffing. Delve in only after too drunk to care about dignity or any other multi-syllabic word.
CULTURALLY RELEVANT PIECES of WRITING.
Culturally relevant pieces of writing are, ironically, not that relevant. In fact, mentioning such an article or book during a dinner party discussion while seated at the (presumably) grown-up table will most likely bring about blank stares or a strategical verbal volley--usually a reference to LeBron's shooting average in last night's NBA game. Reference to Bill Buckley or Toni Morrison offers a paltry return in both conversation and peer-group esteem at best and the presumption that you are just showing off at worst. Examples include 95% ofThe Atlantic, any play by Oscar Wilde and any book that if turned into a film would star Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio or Meryl Streep. Directions for use are even more simple than for Fluff and Smut: Unless you are discussing it with the man you are sleeping with (who, of course, given your general good taste would not meet you with a blank stare when you cross reference Salome with the bible), keep it to yourself.
Monday, June 8, 2009
i love this song, part two
Like I said, wrong.
Colin Cowie had been there.
And Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Salvatore Ferragamo and a bit of Baby Phat (for it's slutty-but-not-easy cred, which is the card every self-respecting Vegas girl plays) were there, too, on the soles and the tags of the dolls on prom court, who looked more Pussy Cat and less Barbie. And yes, I'm rolling my eyes as I write this.
There was a throng of tipsy, silicon-pumped mothers fluffing their spawn's Oscar Blandi extensions (flown in special for requisite show of conspicious consumption) with their Mason Pearson brushes and smoothing their progeny's custom-designed eyebrows by Anastasia (also flown in special--Anastasia, not the eyebrows, which--according to resident Perez Hilton wannabe Zacharay Sanders--caused an unmendable rift between (formally) BFFs Zenith Michaels and Natasha W.--yes, that W). It was during this moment that it struck me what upper echelon genes (stripper genes!) populate Vegas. Why I hadn't noticed before, I don't know. The equation is simple: dashing, successful hotel and casino magnate plus reformed Spearmint Rhino girl= Canyon Day School coed. Regardless of insinuations, no one can deny the exceedingly high hotornot.com scores of the offspring.
For some reason this display of Vegas flash and maternal mettling made me want to text Bliss, who was attending an affair at the Mandarin Oriental in New York, where there were real, live grown-ups and presumbably adult conversations in progress (something I have yet to experience at any affair in Sin City). Given my self-imposed "break," to text Bliss would be breaking my own rules I knew, but I was suddenly possessed by a horrible thought: at that very minute he was charming a crudite-nibbling, leggy brunette by deliberately trying not to charm her. I couldn't help but to imagine it--Bliss, with martini in hand, had stopped mid sip as said crudite-nibbling, leggy brunette (let's call her Nadia) helped herself to his olive, sucking it off the little black sword and then making an offhand comment about how she love, oh my god just love, a man in a tie it must have someting to do with the fact that she go to an all-girls school yes the kind wit ve short skirts and knee highs and oh my god vose St. Petersburg Academy boys across the river vas always too yummy for her to standing.
Now given that Bliss is Bliss, in response to Nadia he would most certainly say something conspicious about his current "taken" status. He would mention something brilliant, like how his girlfriend (me) named her first dog Olive and how he had never ever pictured himself as a small dog kind of guy until I, by the grace of God, sauntered into his life and how he will be lonely without me and Olive sleeping next to him tonight in the hotel. He would laugh, amused by his own brilliance in fending the vixen off without being impolite. He would be oblivious to the fact that in Manhattan "taken" loosely translates into "worth stealing." Yeah, that conjugation-challenged harlot was about to go down when Beatrice Longfellow tapped me on the shoulder.
"eLLe, you're in charge of the nameplates. They are listed alpabetically. Can you handle that? Once Mr. Bone wands them, they'll check in with you to see where they sit for dinner, k? You got that?"
Colin Cowie had been there.
And Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Salvatore Ferragamo and a bit of Baby Phat (for it's slutty-but-not-easy cred, which is the card every self-respecting Vegas girl plays) were there, too, on the soles and the tags of the dolls on prom court, who looked more Pussy Cat and less Barbie. And yes, I'm rolling my eyes as I write this.
There was a throng of tipsy, silicon-pumped mothers fluffing their spawn's Oscar Blandi extensions (flown in special for requisite show of conspicious consumption) with their Mason Pearson brushes and smoothing their progeny's custom-designed eyebrows by Anastasia (also flown in special--Anastasia, not the eyebrows, which--according to resident Perez Hilton wannabe Zacharay Sanders--caused an unmendable rift between (formally) BFFs Zenith Michaels and Natasha W.--yes, that W). It was during this moment that it struck me what upper echelon genes (stripper genes!) populate Vegas. Why I hadn't noticed before, I don't know. The equation is simple: dashing, successful hotel and casino magnate plus reformed Spearmint Rhino girl= Canyon Day School coed. Regardless of insinuations, no one can deny the exceedingly high hotornot.com scores of the offspring.
For some reason this display of Vegas flash and maternal mettling made me want to text Bliss, who was attending an affair at the Mandarin Oriental in New York, where there were real, live grown-ups and presumbably adult conversations in progress (something I have yet to experience at any affair in Sin City). Given my self-imposed "break," to text Bliss would be breaking my own rules I knew, but I was suddenly possessed by a horrible thought: at that very minute he was charming a crudite-nibbling, leggy brunette by deliberately trying not to charm her. I couldn't help but to imagine it--Bliss, with martini in hand, had stopped mid sip as said crudite-nibbling, leggy brunette (let's call her Nadia) helped herself to his olive, sucking it off the little black sword and then making an offhand comment about how she love, oh my god just love, a man in a tie it must have someting to do with the fact that she go to an all-girls school yes the kind wit ve short skirts and knee highs and oh my god vose St. Petersburg Academy boys across the river vas always too yummy for her to standing.
Now given that Bliss is Bliss, in response to Nadia he would most certainly say something conspicious about his current "taken" status. He would mention something brilliant, like how his girlfriend (me) named her first dog Olive and how he had never ever pictured himself as a small dog kind of guy until I, by the grace of God, sauntered into his life and how he will be lonely without me and Olive sleeping next to him tonight in the hotel. He would laugh, amused by his own brilliance in fending the vixen off without being impolite. He would be oblivious to the fact that in Manhattan "taken" loosely translates into "worth stealing." Yeah, that conjugation-challenged harlot was about to go down when Beatrice Longfellow tapped me on the shoulder.
"eLLe, you're in charge of the nameplates. They are listed alpabetically. Can you handle that? Once Mr. Bone wands them, they'll check in with you to see where they sit for dinner, k? You got that?"
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